Devotion
(The law was based on loyalty: and all were under the law, even the king. The spell had been in such effect for millennium, nay, longer—the stories from that time mere legends, even the eldest no longer remembering the events of that time. It was a good law: to be truthful and supportive of the health and wellbeing of your others, whether they be spouse, partner, comrade-in-arms, blood brother, kin, the law distinguished not.)
oOo
Liesmith, they called him, and they feared him. For what manner of person could disregard such a thing as was woven into their very bones, compulsion and punishment alike? His words fell like molten silver from his open mouth, but his eyes were cracked emeralds in which the light shattered. As a child he had cried when careless-innocent fibs burned his throat and coiled inside his chest like an arid waste of sand, and yet that did not stay him. The omnipresent and uncaring cruelty stung his palms like thorned vines, and he strove ever the harder to rip them away, not content to stay within the bright garden paths.
So it went: each time he cast a suspicion on another the warm honeyed feeling of victory and glee, control over the fates itself triumphed tenuously over nausea and lightheadedness, nightmares full of foul visions painting his every sin. And worse: and worse it went. The ecstasy of pain was neverending, each little slight caught for a silent eternity in the empty caches of his heart, wearing at the open sores they made. And yet: with so much lost, what was one more such burden? The ground he walked on was made of broken glass.
Thor, then: how perfect, never straying. As a boy, golden in afternoon sun, laughing and playing, then hanging near, worried as Loki would cry in bitter pain and anger: it used to comfort him. Sometime, he knew not when, his presence became less comfort than jealousy, a wound that festered in his heart, for what was the honor in the matter, what favoritism let Thor alone while he tripped, again and again, into straying ways? What fairness was there in this that he would be punished while Thor could do no wrong?
It lay upon him, time by time: the way back unreachable, he had lost it so long ago, and the rewards were so much sweeter here in the tangled vales of roses. Illusions he spun and smiles he bestowed on them, the perfect, in their golden prison. They feared him, yes: he would not have it otherwise.
(This) he thinks. His curse bestowed upon him while he was yet a wailing babe: stained monster. The knowledge that his false parents' lies must sit like cankers within them just as his own trespasses do him does not give satisfaction as it should. For if he had only known… pain was bearable. An indelible wrong could be accepted, a monster could know himself and be at peace, if only he did not see the soaring heights of others, and, unknowing, ask why, always striving in a vain assay.
It comes to be within him, amorphous thoughts taking shape slowly and in secret, that Thor is too perfect: a king's place is to lie, a king's place means betrayal in one hand, loyalty in the other. Thor knows naught of that. Thor's way has been strewn with scented rushes; give him a taste of pain and he will fall.
(He must needs learn.)
That perfect world of perfect caring disgusts him. It is a mirrored palace built of fear: how can he know true caring from false when all are aware of the pits that lie beside each misstep? There is no trusting anyone.
oOo
It is lonely in this briar-thicket, endless forest. Come, Thor, see the view, drink deep of blood and stay with me awhile.
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